Plaque Figurine of a Woman Holding Her Breasts (AO 29627)
Unknown · Seventh to sixth century BC
A moulded terracotta plaque about seven centimetres high, showing a standing woman who supports her breasts with her hands. Her headdress is cylindrical, unlike the rounded caps of her two companions, and two plaits of hair are brought forward over her shoulders. She wears bracelets on each arm. Look at the way the figure and its background were pressed together in a single mould, so that the woman seems to emerge from a flat slab, and at the remaining traces of paint that once brightened the surface. The lower part is lost.
Purchased by the Louvre in nineteen eighty-nine and attributed by style to the region of Aleppo, the figurine is dated to the seventh or sixth century BC, the last centuries of the Aramaean kingdoms and the period of Assyrian and Babylonian domination in Syria. Set side by side, the three plaques in this case show how a single type, the woman holding her breasts, was varied in headdress, hair and jewellery from workshop to workshop. These small images had no temple and no name that we know; they were the private devotions of ordinary households, asking for children, milk and protection.
Did You Know? Her cylindrical headdress and forward-hanging plaits distinguish her at a glance from the two sister figurines beside her.
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